


Thicket

by rfsmiley



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, cw: hand injury, cw: needles, heavy-handed symbolism, in which Crowley is trapped and Aziraphale is finding his way, the princess is not sleeping, you could read this at face value I suppose but why would you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 15:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rfsmiley/pseuds/rfsmiley
Summary: But round about the castle there began to grow a hedge of thorns, which every year became higher, and at last grew close up round the castle and all over it, so that there was nothing of it to be seen. - Brothers Grimm





	Thicket

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FayJay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FayJay/gifts).

> In this house we love and adore FayJay. FayJay my dear, please don't take this gift as a fishing for a recording; in fact I would really prefer it if you didn't record it as I would like to finally be able to give you something unrequited. (It also occurs to me belatedly that this might not be your cup of tea and if that's the case don't worry about it at ALL. just know that it was made with you in mind from its inception, with adoration!)
> 
> Ineffable husbands and fairy tales - I really have no defense for this, but it was great fun.

*

The thorns were sharp.

He had known that they would be. He had prepared, had dressed himself carefully, shining armor and an aventail to guard the pale white lily of his throat. He had chosen his vambraces with care, secured the gauntlets, buckled on the boots. And of course, he had the sword.

It was not enough.

_Beware of the briars, _everyone had whispered, but what they had not said was that they _moved._

Serpentine, spiked, deadly, they twined in a vicious dance, their susurrations more frightening in the absence of any wind. Sometimes a branch would whiplash into an available hollow, splintering with the force of impact. Other times the movement would be slow, a languorous stretch, and what had been open air not minutes before would slowly knot itself into a barrier.

This was unfair, Aziraphale felt strongly, as, even without agency, the thorns themselves were horrifying. The biggest were swords in their own right, which defied reason. Most, however, were approximately the size of dirks or daggers or occasionally as small as a belt knife (and he was discovering that he was most afraid of these last; they tapered to a woman’s sewing needle, hungry for the thimble of an eye).

But of course: he had a task to do. He had also been reassured, by all who knew of it, that he would be fine, yes, of course he would be fine. Or, well. As long as he was not distracted.

And so he had entered the thicket.

it was immediately aware of his presence. How he knew, he could not tell, exactly, but he knew it all the same. He held the sword aloft, red flame licking down the blade, watching the way the fanged shadows leapt away from it as if scalded. Fury emanated from the thorns, and then, resentfully, they yielded to him, opening a path deeper into the wood. Aziraphale advanced, aware that, behind him, they were braiding themselves back into a snarl of death.

The youngest son, he told himself. The boy who pulled the sword from the stone, the hero who saved his final wish. The child who thought to leave breadcrumbs. They all triumphed, where the unworthy had failed and fallen.

Fate favors the pure of heart.

As if answering him, there was a sudden vile screeching at his shin; a thorn had skated questioningly across the burnished metal of a greaves, as if testing it, shrill as a hag’s nail on her cauldron. Aziraphale fought the surge of terror. He swung the weapon down and the vine leapt away.

Courage, he told himself, and tried not to notice that his sword, which had been bestowed as if it were an Excalibur of sorts, cast a pitifully meager circle of light.

The wood whispered to itself as he went on. Dwarfed by the tangle of thorns, he found that he was beset by a rustling darkness on all sides; even above him, far above, there was theoretically a moon, but Aziraphale saw no sign of it. There were only branches and limbs and their respective teeth, twining around him, curiously, redly illuminated by the fire he bore.

He traveled on, as quickly as he dared, fending off the snarls of wood, occasionally cutting his way though where they attempted to bar his path. This seemed to provoke rage; the movements of the thorns grew more and more erratic, occasionally lunging back at him, or trying to strike the sword from his hand. He swung back viciously. He would be victorious, he told himself. He would find the way through, where no one else could.

And then, it happened: the thing he had been dreading.

A thorn sank into the soft meat under an eye.

Aziraphale somehow managed not to scream, but it was a near thing. Once he had shoved the branch away, he succumbed to the crush of nausea and stood shaking, eyes screwed shut, wondering if he had been blinded. Gradually, the roar in his ears faded, but he could not seem to stop trembling. He transferred the sword to his other hand and, wresting a gauntlet off, gingerly touched his fingertips to the wound. They came away wet. His primary emotion was relief: He could see the blood.

He had no more time to catch his breath, however, for now he perceived the briar-wood was moving again, multiple branches at once, having realized their moment of opportunity. One knocked the gauntlet from his hands while another went – again, _again_? – for his face. He managed to dodge, this time, and then brandished his sword with both hands, the hilt warm against the one bare palm, the flames casting flickering shadows as the briars reared back. Cursing softly, he tried to blink the blood from his eyes.

The thicket seemed to evaluate him for a moment. Aziraphale had the strong impression of eyes where there were only whorls of wood. And then it struck.

He cried out. A thorn the size of a dagger had speared his one bare hand, impaling it, splintering bone and tendon, making the fingers slacken with shock. The sword fell. In the darkness, the flames licked an orange comet path after it, and then a branch intercepted it and bore it away. A moment later, barely visible through the lattice of fanged wood, its light winked out.

Darkness flooded the thicket. Aziraphale listened to his own shallow breaths as he stood trembling, hand still ensnared, afraid to move and make the agony worse. His whole arm was rotten with the pain of it.

The wood coiled around him, and then moved again. Awareness of his own imminent ruin swept through him, in one terrible instant, before the next blows fell.

Dimly, as he staggered, he was conscious of the cunning of this fresh attack. The briars had targeted the crevices where the plates of armor overlapped, wedging apart the metal with the force of the strike, and Aziraphale felt the answering knife of pain at his shoulder. Then another, sharper agony bloomed at his waist, along with an impact hard enough to knock him sideways and wrench his shattered hand free of its trap.

This time he did hear himself scream. The sound, torn from him like the thorn itself, was cut off abruptly when the branch changed directions in midair. Snagging his aventail, it buried a fang in the mesh of metal, which diverted the deadly point but left him essentially pinned by the throat. Aziraphale gagged, rearing back, only to find that the way free was blocked by another arc of wood.

Spread-eagled, held fast in multiple places by the thicket, Aziraphale thought about Fate’s favor, and whether relying on the purity of one’s heart wasn’t straight bullshit after all.

He was aware of the dull ache of multiple wounds where the thorns had breached his armor. Trying to move was impossible, given their deep bite and the awkward crush of the metal. He was, in a word, trapped. If the cursed wood decided to blind him now, there wouldn’t be a damned thing he could do to stop it.

It did no such thing, however. It simply waited, holding him in place. This far, it seemed to say, but no farther. Not unless you are worthy.

Aziraphale considered this for a while, and then, awkwardly, trying not to shift his torso too much, took off his other gauntlet.

The thicket was still.

Carefully, using his uninjured hand, Aziraphale undid the strap over his breastplate, and then, even more gingerly, loosened the buckles at his sides. Gasping, he felt the armor’s grip on him relax, felt the violet shock of pain as the metal jostled still-embedded pieces of wood. His shattered hand, already a torment, blazed with answering agony.

There was another moment of hesitation, and then the thorns pulled free and let him go.

Shaking, Aziraphale tried to catch his breath, inhaling deep lungfuls of night air, even though the heave of drinking it in made his punctures howl. When he was a little calmer, he finished shrugging free of his breastplate, and dragged the mangled aventail from his shoulders. He even undid his vambraces for good measure, wincing as he realized that, underneath, his whole right arm was sodden with blood, thanks to the ghastly injury to his hand.

He let them drop to the ground, and then, bared to his shirtsleeves from the waist up, he spread his arms to the thicket.

“All right,” he said, in a voice so low and terrible that he almost didn’t recognize it as his own. “Do your worst.”

The branches uncoiled and twisted away from him. Against all reason, not so much as a twig brushed against him. He even thought that he could make out a path opening, a place where the wood was not so dense, as if offering a way to get through the briar untouched.

_Well, then,_ thought Aziraphale grimly, _fuck you very much,_ and he stumbled on, holding his right arm awkwardly against his chest.

He had no idea how much time passed. He mostly tried to pretend he was somewhere else entirely. Occasionally there was the scrape of a needle against his skin, a sharp and grounding reminder of his surroundings, but somehow, this time, it was never hard enough to draw blood. Hysterically, Aziraphale reflected that that was probably a good thing; he was certainly already losing enough of it, a hot stream running from his right elbow and spattering the undergrowth behind him, leaving an ugly trail. Somehow, he was reminded again of breadcrumbs. Insane giggles bubbled in his chest. Tamping them down, he realized, somewhat ruefully, that, given the trauma of the last several hours, he was probably delirious.

A moment later, he realized he was also free of the thicket.

The briars seethed behind him. Despite their frenetic energy, however, they made no move to snare him or drag him back. Unarmored, Aziraphale had been permitted to pass.

He stared unseeingly at the thicket for a long moment, and then he turned, and looked up.

He had been expecting a castle, but it seemed farcical to call this ruin of stone such a thing. The wall in front of him was little more than rubble now, in places, and through the gaps in the stone he could see a crumbling keep, twined with vines with thorns that did not appear to be moving, by the grace of God.

Aziraphale shivered, bowing his head over his hand for a minute, allowing himself to fully feel the pain, and even to weep a little over the loss of the sword. And then he squared his shoulders, and went on.

Scaling the wreckage of the castle wall was not difficult, once he was sure of his footing. The keep likewise was unguarded, and Aziraphale touched his fingers to the wall hangings, the dust thick and soft as silt on the tables, though marked in funny undulating patterns in places, as if disturbed by some slithering thing. He found this alarming, a little. Perhaps there was some kind of creature here, one he would have to fight bereft of blade.

He decided not to worry about it.

The discovery of the stairs was a relief; their ascent, less so, since Aziraphale was still cradling his hand and the climb somehow worsened the anguish of it. Trickles of blood kept tickling his lips and he licked the sensation away, absently. Once he wiped at his face with his uninjured hand, but he regretted this; his unmarred palm came away dark, offering a sudden and visceral reminder of his time in the wood, and the resulting nausea stabbed deep.

The stairwell ended in a door.

Aziraphale looked at it, considering. The heavy iron was wrought in a formidable latch, requiring two hands: impossible to maneuver with his damaged one in the state it was in. He tried with one, and, being unsuccessful, inelegantly employed an elbow.

For a moment, he feared that it wouldn’t work, but then the metal shrieked and released its fanged hold on the catch, and the door swung open, groaning.

He went in.

Darkness reigned here too. He could faintly make out more tapestries on the walls, moving in the night air as slowly as breath, and – _ah_ – the silhouette of a bed, barely visible by what little light came in through the window. Approaching, he could see the pucker and glint of a brocade – rich, flawless, immaculate, absurd in a keep that had gone utterly to seed. Like finding a ruby in the dirt, he thought, touching it, fingertips to the fabric, momentarily forgetful of his grime and the still-flowing blood. It took him a moment to realize that, here, at least, there was no dust.

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon.”

Aziraphale jerked backwards, staring as a shadow detached itself from the wall.

“Sorry?” he said, and he hated that it sounded like a squeak.

“You,” said the other, impassive. “Trying to get in here.”

Aziraphale backed away from the bed as the figure approached. It was too dark to see his face properly. He wished with a fervor for his sword, the comfort of that familiar heat and light. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to intrude –”

This seemed to elicit amusement from the stranger; he didn’t laugh, exactly, but he made a noise deep in his throat that made Aziraphale think of geese, and a little of his apprehension ebbed away. “I was watching from the window,” was the drawling answer. “I think I can say with some authority that you definitely meant to intrude.”

“Watching from the window,” Aziraphale repeated numbly.

“Well, critiquing from the window,” the other amended. “All constructive, of course. Didn’t you have a flaming sword?”

Reflexively, Aziraphale looked down at his right hand. The wound looked surreal in this near-darkness, a glossy black leaf on the pale of his palm, a patch of tendon-patterned shine that throbbed and wept.

The stranger followed his gaze. “You’re hurt,” he observed, laconic.

“I’ll be all right.”

The other huffed a breath, and didn’t answer. Aziraphale watched him pluck at his own hem and tear the fabric, an easy, practiced move. The strip of tunic came away easily, and the stranger came forward; Aziraphale allowed his hand to be taken, allowed the makeshift bandage to be wound. And then he looked up into the other’s eyes.

Shock washed through him, more insistent than the pain.

They were the eyes of a serpent.

“Oh,” he breathed. “It’s you.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” said the stranger flatly.

“No, I mean – you’re the one I was looking for.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“You are,” said Aziraphale, convinced. “I can tell. You’re _enchanted_.”

The stranger frowned, not looking back at him, intent on the work of binding Aziraphale’s hand.

“How?” Aziraphale persisted. “How long ago?” He clenched his uninjured hand. For some reason he found himself fighting a mysterious impulse to touch the sharp edge of the other’s cheekbones, the brows set over the uncanny eyes, the fall of hair that looked dark in these shadows, but which, he suspected, would shine like fire in sun. “Why?”

“Why?” said the other, finally looking up, and Aziraphale flushed under the heat of his palpable anger. “I asked too many questions, that’s why,” and the way he said it was biting.

Oh, there was a story, Aziraphale could sense it: a thick mottled tome, opaque as a glass casket. He wanted to shatter it, shake the princess awake, cast the piece of apple from her lips. _Who did this? Who did this?_

“Who are you?” he said instead.

“No one important,” said the other dismissively. A moment later, relenting under Aziraphale’s glare, he muttered something that sounded like _crawly._

“Crowley?” Aziraphale echoed, not sure he had heard him properly.

There was a sudden shine in the serpentine eyes, and Aziraphale flushed under the intensity of their regard; they narrowed, as if their owner was considering something. “Yes,” he said, slowly, thoughtfully, and then, bizarrely, he repeated it. “Yes. Crowley.”

“Well. Crowley,” said Aziraphale, feeling slightly wrongfooted as those clever fingers finally secured the bandage and, satisfied, Crowley stepped back. “How long have you been here?”

Crowley’s glance strayed to the window. After a moment, Aziraphale looked too. Together they watched the thicket roil and twist, a swath of death just beyond the crumbling ramparts.

“Oh,” Crowley said, quietly. “A very long time,” and something about the way he said it made Aziraphale look back at him, more closely this time.

“Alone,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Their eyes met for an instant, but only that, because Crowley scoffed and turned away. “You’ve made a terrible mistake, you know,” he threw over his shoulder, his voice suddenly sharp again.

“Have I?”

“This.” Crowley gestured at the thicket. “Harder to get out than in.” He pushed up a sleeve and even in the darkness Aziraphale could see the knots of old scars, the telltale marks of punctures that had healed badly. His voice turned sour. “Even snakes can’t find a way out.”

Aziraphale wanted to ask what he meant by that, and then, after Crowley cast him another sideways, glittering glance, found that he didn’t need to. Pity pierced him, sharper than thorns.

“Poor devil,” he murmured. “Putting you to sleep would have been more humane.”

“What?”

“You know,” said Aziraphale. Fatigue from his time in the wood was beginning to creep over him. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Am I?” Crowley inquired, sounding genuinely interested. “According to who?”

Aziraphale waved a hand, irritably, and then immediately regretted the movement, which sent an arrow of pain up his arm. “All the old stories,” he said. “The princess pricks her finger on a spindle, falls asleep for a hundred years –”

“What the fuck is a spindle?” said Crowley. “And, wait. Wouldn’t she be dead, after a hundred years?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale fretted. “This is all wrong.”

“That’s a long time to not use the toilet,” Crowley mused. “_Sleeping_, for a hundred years –”

“Well, perhaps it’s not meant to be taken literally –”

“ – and it also occurs to me that I should clarify that, in fact, I am not, and never have been, a princess –”

“I wasn’t really expecting –”

“Oh, sure,” said Crowley, dryly. “You don’t seem disappointed at _all._”

“I’m not disappointed,” snapped Aziraphale. “I just don’t know what to do!”

Crowley looked at him with the same pity Aziraphale had felt for him a moment before, and oh, that chafed.

“All right,” he said levelly, “ah –” and he fumbled.

“Aziraphale.”

“Aziraphale,” the other repeated, tasting it. “So. What happens next, in these stories of yours? The princess is asleep, and then?”

“The hero,” said Aziraphale. The word sounded so silly, now, coming from his lips. “The hero finds her, and kisses her, and her enchantment is broken.” He frowned. “I think.”

“You think,” Crowley suggested, fascinated.

“Well,” said Aziraphale. He was so tired. “That’s how it works in books.”

“So you hacked your way in here,” said Crowley, beginning to sound amused, “like a white knight, or – or an avenging angel, and you thought you’d just kiss the first stranger you found in a bed and all would be right with the world?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale answered simply.

His lack of guile did not dissipate the other’s mirth. The other made that funny noise in the back of his throat again and rubbed a hand over his mouth, as if dispelling the ghost of someone else’s lips. “So sorry to disappoint,” he said. “As you can see, I’m ambulatory.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t a very good enchantment,” Aziraphale suggested.

“Perhaps it wasn’t,” Crowley said vaguely. And then, tossed out in a tone that was a shade too casual, a throwaway line, lighthearted enough to be taken for a joke: “You could always kiss me anyway, and see what happens.”

Aziraphale considered this, and then, to his abrupt horror, realized that Crowley was _watching _him consider it, the humor in his expression finally fading, to be replaced by something curious and bright.

“If you think it would do any good,” he said, trying to sound prim, and realizing too late that he sounded rather strangled instead.

“Do you know,” said Crowley, his voice suddenly serious, “I’m optimistic.”

Somehow the distance between them closed. The other touched his face, a cautious whisper of contact, and Aziraphale flinched before he could stop himself, feeling the ghost of a fingertip at the puncture under his eye.

“You’ve suffered for this, O my avenging angel,” and Aziraphale wondered if he was being mocked.

“Well, yes,” he said tartly. And then, softening, as he remembered the scars, “But so have you.”

He set his hands on the narrow hips, and felt the hiss of surprise against his mouth, and then they were kissing.

It was unremarkable, at first. Aziraphale closed his eyes, pressing into it, hoping against hope to kindle some ancient magic. It didn’t seem to be working. Crowley was stiff in his arms. His hand ached with the pain of contact. More than anything else, he was distracted by the embarrassing iron tang of blood, which he knew to be his own, and which Crowley could probably also taste.

And then their lips parted a little more, and a spark of glory flamed into being between their tongues.

It was not an enchantment, of course. Or, well, Aziraphale thought, if it was, it was a spell of the kind gifted to every person, as common and earthy as baker’s bread. Yet it offered a kind of magic all the same. Unbidden, he thought of the slipper fitting perfectly, the seed swelling to a beanstalk, the rose blooming riotously in its cage. Here was Crowley’s hand in his hair, here was the way their noses fit. Here was their breath, coming short and hungry, little slick sounds of contact and separation as loud as Aziraphale’s own heartbeat in his ears.

They parted, and looked at each other. Aziraphale tried to catch his breath. He was acutely aware of the darkness, and the galloping steed of his pulse, and, above all, the fact that they were alone in a room with a bed in it.

“I’m awake now, at any rate,” Crowley quipped, and although his tone was flippant, Aziraphale saw with relief that he was not the only one who had felt it; there was something new and naked and rapt in the other’s expression. But, _oh _–

“It didn’t work,” he said, disappointed.

“What?”

“Your eyes.”

“Mm.” Nothing changed in Crowley’s expression; he was still looking at Aziraphale with awe, as if he had been offered salvation and gold and all the kingdoms besides.

“It didn’t _work_,” he said again, furiously, feeling that perhaps he had not made himself understood.

Crowley blinked – for the first time, Aziraphale realized. “You said.” He peered closer. “But that’s – oh, no, angel,” he added hastily, real alarm in his voice. “Don’t_ cry_ –”

“I’m not,” said Aziraphale, venomously, turning away, feeling the sting of salt burn the wound under his eye and hating the betrayal of it.

And then he froze.

Through the window, he could see the night sky fading to a rich cobalt, outlining the distant rise and fall of hills, stretching far and away, crested with a line of light that would soon be a brilliant gold. He stared, astonished, the revelation creeping over him as gradually as the arriving dawn: namely, the fact that he could see the horizon at all.

The thicket was gone.

He blinked.

No briar. No malicious tangles of wood. No bloody thorns, waiting to blind them both.

They had broken a different kind of spell.

Whatever curse had been laid on Crowley was intact, somehow, but perhaps that was incidental, in the end, Aziraphale thought wildly. What really mattered was that they were free. Laid out before them was the whole vast kingdom. It appeared that they could choose to go anywhere.

Perhaps they could even go together.

He stood breathless, trying to wrap his mind around it, trying to remember the rules that he had thought he understood, once, indelible ink on some once-revered page. None of them seemed to apply. They had stumbled into some as-yet-unwritten story. The armor and sword were hindrances instead of gifts; the monster stayed cursed and was redeemed anyway; the hero failed in his quest and was still crowned. And why not? Why not?

Possibilities moved in him, a lovemaking of sorts, murmuring the sweet nothings of release in his ear. Listening, still trying to make sense of it all, he heard the distant call of birdsong. A shrike, he thought. Or – perhaps a nightingale.

“Well,” said a voice, quiet and soft in his ear, and Aziraphale realized that Crowley had come to stand beside him, knuckles brushing against the back of Aziraphale's uninjured hand, as if he was thinking about lacing their fingers together. “Would you look at that.”


End file.
